


Space: 1999 - Footprints

by alex_greene



Category: Apollo 11 - Fandom, Space: 1999
Genre: Voiceover by Neil A Armstrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-13 21:51:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15374106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alex_greene/pseuds/alex_greene
Summary: The Alphans mark a very solemn ceremony on the surface of the Moon.





	Space: 1999 - Footprints

'It's here.'

John's suit radio burst into life. He looked up and turned around. Alan was off to his left, gesticulating.

'I see you, Alan,' Commander Koenig said, launching himself across the dusty lunar landscape in slow motion.

They had come as far as they'd dared in Eagle One. There was something ahead that they did not wish to disturb, and the retros of the Eagle and the treads of the moon buggy would have churned up the ground too much.

'Have you got your camera?' John asked.

'Tell me where to set her up,' Alan replied, picking up the camera and tripod cases from where he'd briefly put them down to gesture to Koenig.

Ahead was a location which was sacred to them. Slowly, reverently, they approached the site, skirting the perimeter to avoid disturbing the markings in the soil.

'Over there, Alan,' John said, pointing. 'I'll set up this one.'

They set up the cameras, noting where a piece of an explosive bolt had fallen here, gouging out its little impact crater, or a scrap of gold foil had landed there. Slowly, painstakingly, they worked their way around the site, taking an almost forensic level of care so as not to disturb anything.

'I know they applied a polymer sealant to the thing, as soon as we got back,' Alan said. 'But they never imagined the stresses the whole Moon would end up going through, did they?'

Koenig grunted, looking up at the alien stars through his helmet visor. 'Nobody did, Alan. Nobody did.'

'They're ready,' Alan said.

Koenig looked at his camera. 'All set. Alpha, can you receive us?'

'Loud and clear, John,' Dr Russell replied.

'Commander, adjust your camera about two degrees down, and five degrees to your right.' The voice was Sandra Benes'.

'Good to hear your voice, Sahn,' Koenig said.

'Yasko sends her regrets. She said she wishes she could be here,' Sahn added. 'There. Perfect, Commander.'

'Right, then,' Alan said, stepping in front of the camera. 'It's ready. Are you recording?'

'We are,' Helena said. 'It's also streaming live all over Alpha.'

John Koenig and Alan Carter stepped in front of one of the camera feeds. 'Can you see us?'

'We can,' Dr Russell replied.

'Cameras One through Three are sending a strong, clear signal,' came another voice over the comm. Maya, the Psychon. 'Relaying through the surface base station. Signal strength five by five.'

'And rolling,' Sandra Benes said. The Command Centre, and Alpha, fell silent. Every survivor of Moonbase Alpha turned to look at a monitor screen in their area. Small crowds gathered at corridor intersections.

Commander Koenig looked into the camera lens. 'People of Moonbase Alpha, this is Commander John Koenig.'

A silence fell.

'It is difficult to know what words to say, at a moment like this,' John said. 'It has been pointed out several times recently that nobody could have imagined this day, or anything like it. We are standing here, on the surface of the Moon, beneath an alien sky. Above us, a nebula is burning across the heavens, bathing the Moon in a golden glow. The light reflected from the Moon's surface, which was silver on the Earth for a billion years, has shone in different colours from the photons radiated from hundreds of stars since, in this short time since we have been cast free of the Earth's orbit.

'Today is seven thousand, two hundred and fifty one days since Monday, September 13, 1999. Breakaway Day.'

Inside the module in Eagle One, Maya looked at Tony Verdeschi.

'Cut to Camera Two,' Tony said.

The feed cut to Camera Two. The remains of an ancient lunar module stood proud on the lunar surface.

'This day is also important to us,' Commander Koenig said, 'not because of what we did, but because of what others did before us.'

Back on Alpha, every single Alphan was now standing, their expressions solemn. Some were silently praying. Many were tearful.

'Back home, if we had still been in orbit around the Earth, today would have been Saturday, July 20, 2019,' John said. 'Fifty years since this module - the Apollo 11 module - landed on the Moon, right here, on Tranquility Base.'

'The original Eagle,' Alan added.

'And throughout this time, we carefully preserved one relic of that initial foray onto an alien world.'

Back in Eagle One's module, Maya switched feeds. 'Switching to Three.'

Sandra let out an involuntary sob as the old bootprint filled the screen. It had long been sealed with a fine polymer seal, on orders of Gorsky, the previous Commander, and a dome had been erected over the footprint since.

'One small item,' John said, 'now sacred to us, enshrined and encased in a protective dome forever.'

They stood over the First Footprint laid in the lunar dust fifty years before, by Neil Armstrong.

'I want to say something,' Alan Carter said.

'Go ahead, Alan,' John replied.

'I've been thinking of this day for a long time,' Alan said. 'There were times that we did not know if we were gonna make it. None of us knew for sure. We still don't know.

'But when they came here, half a century ago, the crew of Apollo 11 did not know for certain if they were gonna make it either. Arthur C Clarke and Isaac Asimov theorised that the dust of a billion years would have formed a dense sea, finer than talc, and that in a worst case scenario, this whole module would have sunk to the bottom of the Sea of Tranquility here, and the Lunar Module would have been their tomb.

'President Nixon had been forced to write their eulogy before their arrival, just in case,' Commander Koenig added. 'This is something that the Space Commission only told to us Commanders. I got to see the actual letter. Simmonds pulled some strings. It was moving. But unnecessary.'

'So,' Alan said, 'facing the camera feed again, 'if - despite the risks - they chose to go to the Moon, in that decade, with technology far less advanced than what we had in 1999, and they did the other things, not because they were easy, but because they were hard ... then I reckon that we can do the same.' Alan glanced at John. 'Only we've gone a little bit further.'

'Thanks, Alan,' John said, letting Carter step aside so the Commander could return to the centre of the camera's point of view.

'All stations Alpha, attention,' Commander John Koenig said.

Back at Alpha, citizens of that beleaguered base stood at attention. Even in Eagle One's module, Maya and Tony stood.

'This is not a prayer,' John said. 'This is a meditation. Think of these words spoken by Neil Alan Armstrong, commanding officer of Apollo 11.'

On cue, the recorded voice came over the comm. 'It's one small step for a man ... One ... giant leap for Mankind.'

Silence fell. Dead air. For one minute, Alpha held a respectful silence, the only sound being the eternal electronic background hum and the thrumming of the life support systems.

'As you were,' Koenig said, after the minute's silence had elapsed.

'All right, Commander, the feed's been cut,' Maya said. 'Just us and the Command Centre. If you're done, maybe you can come on back.'

'Still got some time,' Commander Koenig said. 'Even if we spent an hour here, we've got enough suit air for three further hours in our tanks. We won't need to stay out here much longer.' He gazed at the bright nebula. 'Just long enough to enjoy this view.'

They stood a while in silence.

'It's a beautiful Cosmos, isn't it, Alan?'

'It sure is, John.'

Another few moments of silence.

'Do you think they made it, John?'

'Who?'

'Oh, Arthur C Clarke, Neil, Buzz, Michael. All of them.'

'It's been fifty years,' Commander Koenig said. 'Isaac Asimov died before we could bring him here. I attended Carl Sagan's funeral three years before I got assigned to Alpha. Arthur kept declining our offer. He always said he could see us just fine from Sri Lanka.'

'And then one day, he couldn't,' Alan replied.

For the first time in what felt like a long time, John Koenig laughed out loud.

'I shouldn't do that in the suit,' he said, when the laughter had subsided. 'It'll mist up the visor.'

'Are we leaving the cameras here, Commander?'

'Yes, Alan,' Commander Koenig replied. 'We'll take the cases with us.'

'Then, in that case,' Alan said, opening up one of the camera cases, 'there's something else I'd like to leave behind.'

The flag had a long, collapsible pole of titanium which telescoped to its full two metre length. Alan carefully unfurled the cloth flag. It was a Greek letter alpha in gold, surmounted on a blue field. Alan planted it next to the old US flag, which had been bleached white by fifty years of hard radiation.

'That's us,' Alan said. 'That's our mark, to say we were here.'

Commander Koenig smiled. 'Let's get back to base.'

'Do you remember where we parked our buggy?'

Koenig gestured. 'Just follow our footprints.'

**Author's Note:**

> This event takes place after "The Dorcons" (Space: 1999 s02e24), the second season finale and the series finale.
> 
> This story is set on July 20, 2019, fifty years on since the Apollo 11 moon landing, and 7,251 days after Breakaway Day on Monday, September 13, 1999, when the Moon and Moonbase Alpha were thrown free of the Earth's orbit and sent on its wild journey through space. July 20 is a Saturday.
> 
> When I wrote it, it was July 20, 2018. This story is still set in the future to me, at the time of writing.
> 
> This is dedicated to everybody, both from the real world Apollo expeditions and from the cast and crew of the TV show Space: 1999 - in particular Barry Morse, Tony Anholt, Zienia Merton, Gerry Anderson, Sylvia Anderson, and Martin Landau most of all. All of those who are still alive, and all of those who didn't make it (and it's a long list!).
> 
> Hold the names of those who aren't here any more in your minds for a moment, and in your hearts forever.


End file.
